Meet Punkin... beware, long update

This has been a very long time coming!!!!  We are so pleased to announce that we are expecting our first child!!!!  It has been a very long and hard road, but we are finally here... WE'RE PREGNANT!!!!!  It has been very hard to keep it quite, but it's finally time to scream it from the roof tops!!!

This successful round began at the end of September.  After an unsuccessful, long second round on Femara (Letrozole) it was time to throw everything we had at the third round because if we didn't have success we had reached the end of our options with our infertility specialist (IVF just wasn't an option for us and our finances).  We had a plan, take the max dose of the meds and hit it with HCG when my folicles were ready to release an egg.  We realized this was one of the biggest problems for us to overcome... I could grow eggs like crazy, but my little folicles just wouldn't release them!  So we went in time and time again for ultrasounds to monitor and the day came that we were supposed to leave for Nebraska.  It still seemed early in the cycle to need a shot, so I thought we could get to and from Nebraska before needing a shot... boy was I wrong!!!!!  That's what happens when I try to plan ahead!!!  Doctor announced that we'd need a shot the day we were stuck in Nebraska with my parents!!!  OY!!!  So, my wonderful husband was educated in how to give his beautiful wife an injection of HCG in the rump!!!  He was so pleased with this!!!

So we were off to Nebraska with our shot and our orders for... well, making a baby!!  Joe did wonderfully giving me my shot... even though he hated having to do it and I didn't help because I kept laughing... which is what I do when I'm nervous!  And thankfully he got it on the first try, he didn't need to back out and do it again.  We had a nice weekend with my parents in Nebraska celebrating the life of a dear friend who lost his battle with leukemia earlier in September.  It was a fantastic celebration of his life and just the way I wanted to honor his memory and his impact on my life!

We came home (after a drama filled trip with a flat tire just outside of Colorado at 9pm) and collapsed in bed.  Had an uneventful week at work... and I was still under orders that I couldn't take a pregnancy test for two weeks after getting the shot because the HCG injection may give us a false positive.  Well, that weekend something was weird.  I don't know how to describe it without going too far into TMI, but things were just weird.  I held out until Wednesday until I just couldn't stand it and called the doctors office.  We were surrounded with so many wonderful nurses, and they were super supportive and said, well, let's just send you in for a blood test because you're not going to relax unless we do.  So, I raced to the lab for blood work and waited... and waited... and waited... I knew the doctors office would call because they had a STAT order on the blood work but every minute just crept by!!!  Then finally, I got the call.  She said anything with an HCG count higher than a 5 was considered positive and I had a 6!!!  I was reassured that it probably wasn't from the shot, but they wanted to retest in 48 hours just to check.   We just needed numbers to go up and it was a really good sign.  So Friday morning I was the first person at the lab when they unlocked their doors and again, waited, waited, waited, and waited!  Then finally, we had a 28!!!!!!!  That was fantastic and we were considered pregnant, but they wanted to test once again in another 48 hours to continue to see numbers rise!!!!  I called both my parents, I had talked to my sister earlier that day since I couldn't wait for the time difference to tell her... but I didn't call Joe.  I knew we were meeting for lunch so I wanted to tell him in person.  Unfortunately, we didn't get the opportunity to really celebrate because some of his coworkers joined us for lunch so Joe had to hold in his reaction.  However, Joe is not known for jumping up and down, but the little sparkle in his eye was worth it!!!  He was reserved though, I don't think he wanted to believe it.  Next test came back with an HCG count of 124, and we were officially congratulated!!!  We were headed to Joe's parents that weekend so we chose to tell them in person.

Because of the high stress in getting this far, my doctor chose to do an ultrasound every two weeks starting at 6 weeks pregnant.  Mostly to reassure parents, but also to see if there are any problems with implantation and heartbeat early before damage can be done by a tubal pregnancy.  So I was on pins and needles till we got to see that precious little heartbeat at 6 weeks!!  It was so beautiful!!  At first my doctor asked us if we saw it winking at us, and I was thinking, winking, my baby doesn't even have eyelids at this point how the hell is it winking, then I saw it... bliss doesn't even begin to describe the feeling that overcame me.  But we weren't outta the woods, another ultrasound was scheduled for 8 weeks and I needed to make an appointment with my ob/gyn.  My specialist would not deliver our baby... as this is not his area of expertise.  The 8 week ultrasound was just as good and the stress of if this is real had completely melted away.  Joe was super cute and said, hey, looks like a baby in there!  Doctor requested a 10 week update from my ob/gyn since we were scheduled to see her with an ultrasound and we were done with the magical Dr. Bachus.  It was sad, but in a great way.

10 week ultrasound and doctor appointment went well.  I love love love our doctor, she makes me laugh and that's good!  Joe likes her too, and that's really hard to find someone that he likes too.  Dr. Bachus told us that as long as everything looked good still at 10 weeks, we were pretty much in the clear.  But we chose not to scream it yet... we wouldn't be out of the first trimester until Christmas and it was only the beginning of December.  So we were a little more open with the people we worked with, but still chose not to tell everyone until we spoke with extended family closer to the holidays.  So Christmas came and went and we decided to be public!!!  We announced it on Facebook finally on Christmas day by posting a picture of the baby next to a gift box under the tree with the caption "look what Santa left for us under our tree"... it was a fun way to announce it to so many people who have been so supportive of our every hurdle and tear and meltdown!!!

Now as I sit here, I'm currently 15 weeks and 2 days into this pregnancy.  I'm still wearing my normal clothes to work.  However, I'm down to 2 pairs of pants that don't cut into my gut when I sit and only a couple of shirts that my boobs don't completely stretch out!!!  But it works for now.  I'm a little frugal and this whole buying clothes to wear for only a couple of months is a hard pill to swallow!!  I'm very fortunate to have some wonderful friends who have graciously offered me their hand me downs from their pregnancies so I just had to bulk up on professional clothes for work.  So I did pretty good this last weekend with some different deals!!!  Consignment stores that sell maternity clothes... wonderful!!!  We've had another check up with the doctor and we got to hear the heartbeat this time!!!  That was pretty cool!!  I should be able to feel the baby move in the next couple of weeks, and I'm so excited and so hyper aware of every little thing... so far, mostly fart bubbles to report.  I think maybe yesterday I felt something, but only time will tell to see if that was what I thought it was... it certainly wasn't a fart bubble!!!  :)

Oh, so let me take one more moment and explain Punkin... Since we have chosen not to find out the sex of the baby (considering this process hasn't been a surprise for anything) we wanted to still name the baby now, without naming the baby.  We're going to keep sex and names quiet until the baby is born... much more exciting that way!!!  But we didn't want to call it IT... so Joe and I discussed what to use and what not to use.  I had been gifted the name "Cleatus the Fetus" by a dear friend I worked with, however we weren't sure we'd get to use it so it was used by my friend in her pregnancy (they also chose not to find out the sex or tell names) so that name was off the list.  As we looked around we realized there were pumpkins every where, it was late October you see!  We were headed down to Joe's parents to carve pumpkins that weekend... so it only made sense.... Punkin was named!!!  My parents were particularly happy with this as my nickname was Pumpkin... because I was a little chunky baby and my sister was Peanut since she was such a little dainty baby for months!!!  So... meet Punkin!  Welcome to our journey!!!  I only hope to keep you all updated as well as save some of these as a "diary" if you will for my Punkin to read one day!

 Punkin at 6 weeks... that's not the head though on the right, that's the yolk sack... Punkin is the little bean thing to the left of the yolk sack

 Punkin at 8 weeks, looking more like a baby... feet to the left and head to the right

 Punkin at 10 weeks, not my favorite picture because it's not detailed like the others.  Head is up and to the left and the feet are curled to the right.  You can really only see a profile of a face on the left, not the whole head.

Our Christmas surprise!!!